Buenos Dias! Greetings from the Sumaq airport lounge in the gilded halls of the Lima International Terminal, and where Mrs. Dcstudent and I will be spending a few hours before continuing to Brazil.

Our vacation started yesterday, earlier for me than for Mrs. Dcstudent. She didn´t have enough leave to take the whole day off, ha! But, I did! So, I got the dubious distinction of corraling our children (all furry and four legged) and loading them into our car for the 1.5 hour drive to our boarding facility. You see, we love our furry children, they range in age from 4-14, three beagles and a Shep. And, just like children they have unique personalities: Piper, is a daddy´s girl, Joe is an angry old man, Louise, our oldest, just wants to be left alone to sleep (occasionally broken up by eating), and Shep is a go-along to get-along 55 pound lovebug. (Another advantage of furry children is you can legally lock them in a cage when they are driving you crazy, but I digress.)

After dropping the dogs off at the kennel I proceeded another hour to get to Dulles airport where I parked my car in the long-term car park (for free since I volunteer at Dulles), and headed to National to pick up my one-way rental for JFK.

G-od, the hands of fate, Buddha or whomever had obviously decided my morning had gone to well as when I arrived at National I searched the lot for a luxury car, which is what I had rented (Hey, why not start off a vacation in style?), and I couldn't find any. Not a good sign. So even though I am an Emerald Club member and therefore do not need to have any human contact, generally that is, I headed inside where I found the genial "the man." "The man" confirmed my fears, but graciously offered me any car on the lot (except the fully loaded 2012 Mercedes as evidently that was Specialty Luxury and not for plain luxury peons like me). Sadly, the whole lot was looking rather poor, lots of minivans, an altima, a Charger, a couple impalas, but then I saw it...2011 Ford Explorer Limited. Ok, so not that great but it had leather and heater seats. And over 20K miles. And heated seats. I took it and headed into DC to pick up the ol ball and chain...I mean the most wonderful woman in the World.

(And for those of you Flyertalkers reading this, I will be complaining to National that they couldn't honor my reservation. It's not a huge deal but I did pay for luxury and a Ford Explorer, even a Limited Ford Explorer is not Luxury.)